a bleeding purple utah jazz blog

Game 51 – Mom and Dad, can we pleeeease keep him (in the starting lineup)?

This was the first Jazz road win in nearly a month (the last one was was on Jan. 16 at Memphis. The one before that? Dec. 19 at Detroit) and so I’m still high on my leftover euphoria fumes from yesterday.

—1st Quarter Hero: the Jazz.
—2nd Quarter Hero: Memo racked up 28 and 11, including all 11 Jazz points in the last 5:15 of the 2nd, and hit a super clutch 3 with 48 seconds left to tie the game.
—3rd Quarter Hero: Harp was solid as solid can be, and literally saved the Jazz in the 3rd. He got 8 & 3 of his 14 & 8 in the quarter.
—4th Quarter Hero: DWill had his back-to-back-to-back game of at least 34 and took ownership of the game when the Jazz desperately needed it. With the game thisclose to turning into a demoralizing loss that would end all demoralizing losses, DWill scored 12 points in the last 4:30, including 2 and-1s.

–KK was perfect from the floor and line in the game and had the non-highlight reel play of the game. After KMart hit a huge 3 to bring the Kings to within 1 with 1:57 left, Bobby Jackson stole the ball from DWill and the Kings took off. KK sprinted down the court and drew a charge on Jason Thompson. Without that, who knows how it might’ve turned out.

On the KK and CJ situation: Korver needs to start. One of Jerry’s main gripes about CJ is that he doesn’t get any rebounds. KK collected 7 boards tonight, giving him 24 in the last 3 games. And, for all the crap that KK gets about his D, he actually is decent a good portion of the time. In a way, I think that KK starting and CJ coming off the bench could be a good situation for both. KK obviously gets into rhythm faster when he starts (and he indeed said yesterday that it’s easier to start), and CJ off the bench would be able to play without the constant feeling that he’s about to get yanked and/or (at least partially) responsible for slow starts. He can also provide a scoring punch off the bench which is what (and maybe the only thing) he does. Ultimately, the point is that whatever arrangement helps us win > hurt feelings.

On Knight: The 0-for streak continues. He’s now 0-18 in the last 9 games.

To Jerry: No more of the no-offense squad, aka “Lineup of Death” (Vromanite), aka “Nonfense” (rxmike12), of Knight-Price-Ronnie B-Harp-JC ever again. Please. Promise?

On Sap:
51 games in, Sap has played about 250 minutes less than he did all last season. He has missed six games due to injury, and has arguably had four straight off games. However, in 45 games this season, he has already surpassed his points, defensive rebounds, and assists totals from last season while recording 90 less fouls. His FG% and FT% are up, respectively, 5% and 3%. =)

Jazz Notes:
–Right now, the Jazz are in 8th place, 1/2 game ahead of Phoenix and one game behind Dallas. However, they are also just 2 games out of 4th place and home court.
–An idea that okured occured to me during the game: How entertaining would it be to have SAP or even an alternate channel where there’s no commentating and the only audio feed you get is Jerry, mic’d up? It would be an opportunity for all of us to learn some new and colorful words…